The hunters point Shipyard Story

Hunters Point Naval Shipyard was once a source of economic prosperity and stability for the Bayview Hunters Point community in the Southeast sector of San Francisco. It provided thousands of jobs to the Bayview residents and supported a strong, economically viable community. That all changed when the Navy closed the base and eliminated all the jobs.

Today, Hunters Point Naval Shipyard is a center of controversy. It has been declared a federal Superfund site. So, it is a major source of health damaging toxicity. Yet the plans continue to build a multi-billion dollar development project on top of this poisonous wasteland by the Lennar Corporation, one of the nation’s largest builders of homes and specializing in Military base conversions that feature a mix of residential, retail and commercial development along with the creation of parks and open space

The Bayview Hunters Point community carries a heavy burden of toxicity. The Naval Shipyard is San Francisco's only Federal Superfund Site and its most contaminated property. The surrounding Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood is home to more than 2/3 of San Francisco's pollution with freeways, power plants, and a sewage treatment plant. The shipyard's owner, which is still the US Navy, has dragged its feet on fulfilling its obligation to clean it up.

A revitalized Hunters Point Shipyard can be a boon to the Bayview Hunters Point community as well as to the City of San Francisco, if its development is done correctly and conscientiously. As a public asset and San Francisco's last major tract of develop-able land, the stewards of the Shipyard must make the well-being and economic benefit to the surrounding community their primary objective.

On the surface, the plans presented by Lennar appear to meet those standards. The behavior of Lennar, however, is totally different. The work they perform, without proper safeguards, further threatens the health of community residents. Their efforts to shortcut on commitments to clean up the property in accordance with the will of the San Francisco voters and the laws of the City, State and Federal governments will expose the citizens of Bayview as well as the workers and future inhabitants of the shipyard development to a future of unprecedented toxic exposure.

In the face of obvious cold-blooded disdain for the people of Bayview Hunters Point by Lennar, City Governent and elements of State and Federal Government, the people are standing up in cooperative resistance and have formed the community-coalition, Stop Lennar Action Movement (SLAM).